The Canadian dollar extended its 2-day losing streak against major currencies ahead of commencing the North American session on Friday as oil continued its Thursday's slide. The loonie tumbled to a fresh 2-month low against the euro and yen and a 3-week low against the US dollar.
Crude oil prices headed closer to $65 per barrel in early New York deals on Friday. Crude for November delivery was down 70 cents to $65.19 per barrel by 8:45 a.m. ET. Prices touched as low as 65.05 earlier in the day.
The Canadian dollar plummeted to 82.35 against the Japanese yen and 1.6074 versus the European currency by 8:35 am ET. This set the lowest levels for the loonie since July 14. On the downside, support levels are seen at 82.0 versus the yen and 1.613 against the euro. The loonie-yen and euro-loonie pairs were worth 83.83 and 1.5978, respectively at Thursday's close.
The yen rose today as the minutes of the latest meeting showed that the economic conditions in Japan had stopped worsening.
The Bank of Japan board members said that the Japanese economy was finally starting to show signs of bottoming out, minutes from the August 10-11 monetary policy meeting revealed. The members added that output was recovering faster than expected, fueling the recovery.
In economic news from the euro area, consumer confidence in Germany is continuing to improve at the beginning of autumn with less severe decline in the economy than was feared several months ago.
Reaching the highest level in 16 months, the forward-looking consumer confidence index stood at 4.3 points for October, up from 3.8 points in September, survey results published by the Nuremberg-based GfK Group showed today. The reading for September was revised from 3.7 points.
In addition, French consumer confidence indicator rose to minus 36 in September from minus 37 in August, statistical office Insee said today. That was in line with economists' expectations.
Meanwhile, Italy's retail sales fell 2.6% year-on-year in July due to a 0.8% fall in large scale distribution and a 3.7% decline in small and medium scale sales, statistical office Istat said today. Economists had forecast a 1.5% decrease.
The Canadian dollar reached a 3-week low of 1.0985 against its US counterpart by 8:35 am ET. This may be compared to yesterday's close of 1.0895. The greenback-loonie pair is presently worth 1.0954 with 1.105 seen as the next target level.
The greenback gained ground after the report showed that durable goods orders unexpectedly showed a notable decrease in August. According to a report released by the Commerce Department, orders for durable goods fell 2.4 percent in August following a revised 4.8 percent increase in July.
The decrease surprised economists, who had expected orders to edge up 0.4 percent compared to the 5.1 percent increase that had been reported for the previous month.
Excluding a 9.3 percent decline in orders for transportation equipment, durable goods orders were nearly unchanged in August compared to a revised 0.9 percent increase in the previous month.
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